Q&A: What Is It Like To Win ‘Miss Virginia’?

At the end of her spring semester at the University of Virginia, Carlehr Swanson was focused on her comprehensive exams, working toward her doctorate in music.

Like many of her fellow students, she was also preparing for upcoming interviews. But while her peers were practicing for fellowship or internship interviews, Swanson was preparing to answer questions on stage in a ball gown. She was in the running to become this year’s Miss Virginia.

Swanson won the crown on June 29, making her eligible to compete in the Miss America pageant in January. In between appearances at local parades and balancing her other responsibilities as Miss Virginia, Swanson talked to UVA Today about the pageant world and her life as a UVA student.

Q. Can you walk us through what was in your head the moment you realized you had won?

A. Excitement, thankfulness, gratefulness. That was my sixth time at Miss Virginia, and I had been competing for 10 years since I was a teen. So, in that moment, it just felt like all of my hard work had paid off. Going into that week, I prayed that the judges would see my heart, that there would be less of me, more of God. I felt like in that moment, all of those things just came together and made my dream come true.

Q. How many pageants had you competed in to get to this point?

A. Sometimes you do a pageant season, and you win quickly, but I’ve had some years where it was really difficult for me. I would say I’ve competed in 12 or 13 total.

Q. Who helped you get on that stage?

A. God, number one. My faith is very important for me … But then, my mom, she is my No. 1 cheerleader. When we started this journey about pageants, she didn’t know anything about them. We learned a lot through trial and error. She was ultimately the pageant coach, the stylist, the talent coach – she did all of those things for me.

Q. What does the preparation for Miss Virginia look like?

A. I had a unique scenario in that I went to sweeps pageant, which is the last pageant of the pageant season. So, I competed in the last week of April. There are several areas of competition. There’s an interview portion where you can be asked about current events, so you have to watch the news, make sure you’re up with all of those types of things. They ask you questions about your community service platform. There’s a gown portion, there’s a fitness portion. So, making sure you find clothes that fit your body, making sure you’re taking care of yourself, mind, body, and spirit, those are the things I worked on.

Swanson was a six-time Miss Virginia contestant before taking the crown this year. (Photo by Kimberly Needles)

But it was also another unique situation because I’m a Ph.D. student, and I was preparing for my comprehensive exams. About three weeks during the preparation from April to June, I was writing these large essays, so that was also in the preparation.

Q. What’s your community service platform?

A. It’s called “Bridging the Divide: Music is Unity.” I started it in the eighth grade when my grandmother fractured her back. She was in a rehabilitation center, and I would visit her every day to cheer her up. I would sing, I would play songs on the center’s piano. 

I noticed a lot of other residents would come around and enjoy these impromptu performances, and I realized it was because they didn’t have visitors. They weren’t having human connection. I started telling my friends about this experience that I had and started playing these concerts in nursing homes. … From there, I’ve done a community concert series, I’ve done some educational programming.

Q. You’re a burgeoning musicologist and a gospel musician, and your community service is music-based. Do you see any other connections between your academic work and your participation in pageants?

A. That’s one of the reasons why UVA is such a great fit for me, because I’ve met so many professors who do community engagement work, like Bonnie Gordon and Nomi Dave. My professors have given me the tools to combine the two, so I did a partnership with City of Promise (a local nonprofit that tries to alleviate poverty in the Charlottesville area) where we did bucket drumming with the kids. This last semester, I taught a class on music and gun violence, which was a community engagement course, teaching students how they can take music out into the community and make a difference. So, I think it’s a direct relationship.

In addition to her work as a student, Swanson is a gospel musician. (Photo by Rick Myers)

Q. What’s something a lot of people don’t know about the pageant world?

A. How smart the girls are. It is a scholarship program, and participants in the pageants, they have nonprofits, they have their own programs, they have top jobs. I wasn’t the only Ph.D. student there. I think sometimes a lot of people focus on the glitz and the glam, what they see on television, but these are the young ladies in our communities who are truly making a difference.

Q. What’s next for you?

A. I’ve had a few appearances already. I did the Middletown parade, and I did the Stanley homecoming parade. I’m moving into my new sponsored Miss Virginia apartment in Roanoke, where I am right now. And I’m getting ready for the Miss America pageant in January. … Miss Virginia also goes on an ABC tour. She goes to elementary schools across Virginia, and talks to elementary students about making healthy choices. So that’s a big part of the job.